The Gold

Cadillac
By Mildred Taylor
 A snippet of civil rights history in the U.S.
•1865 The Civil War ends. The 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, is ratified.

•1896 The Supreme Court approves the "separate but equal" segregation doctrine.

•1909 The National Negro Committee convenes. This leads to the founding of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

•1925 In its first national demonstration the Ku Klux Klan marches on Washington, D.C.

•1948 President Truman issues an executive order outlawing segregation in the U.S. military.

•1954 The Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional in its ruling on Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas.

•1955 Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. A boycott follows,
and the bus segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional. The Federal Interstate Commerce Commission
bans segregation on interstate trains and buses.

•1964 Civil Right Act becomes law.

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States
enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated racial segregation in
all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for
black Americans; segregation of public schools, public places and public
transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and
drinking fountains for whites and blacks.
 Toledo
Ohio

Line of Segregation between Virginia

Kentucky
States – 1950 N. Carolina
Tennessee
Oklahoma Arkansas S. Carolina

Alabama Georgia
Mississippi
Texas
Louisiana Florida
 Point of View
• Determines from whose perspective a story is told and how it is
told. The point of view can sometimes indirectly establish the
author's intentions:

– Narrator - The person telling the story.

• First-person - Narrator participates in the action but sometimes has limited

knowledge/vision.
• Objective - Narrator is unnamed/unidentified (a detached observer). Does not assume
character's perspective and is not a character in the story. The narrator reports on events
and lets the reader supply the meaning.
• Omniscient - All-knowing narrator (multiple perspectives). The narrator takes us into
the character and can evaluate a character for the reader.
• Limited omniscient - All-knowing narrator about one or two characters, but not all.
 The Gold Cadillac
1. Through whose perspective is the story told? (Who is
the narrator?)

2. From what point of view does the narrator tell the

story?

3. Is this narrator, and the point of view from which she

tells the story, effective in communicating the
author’s purpose in this story? Why or why not?
 Writing another side of the story
In your group, write a script for the part of the story assigned to you. All members of the
group must represent a character in the scene. You will need to imagine, to create, the
conversation between characters. The aim is to give the perspective of the group of characters
you choose through the conversation between those characters. Use correct punctuation for
direct speech! Your group will briefly perform the scene for the rest of the class and should
last 2 – 3 minutes.

1. Scenario #1 – a conversation between family members and neighbors about Dee’s refusal
to ride in the Cadillac to Detroit and then to church.
2. Scenario #2 – the argument involving various uncles, aunts and neighbors about Wilbert’s
decision to drive the Cadillac to Mississippi.
3. Scenario #3 – the conversation in the police station in Mississippi. Include Wilbert, but
focus mostly on the white policemen.
4. Scenario #4 – a conversation between the family members as they drive around in the
1930s Model A Ford.